Rosslyn Park robbed of Winterbottom class
Brendan Gallagher continues his series looking at rugby’s great schools
ROSSALL, situated in the Lancashire coastal town of Fleetwood, have a curiously patchy rugby history and are not a force to be reckoned with now but can look back on some golden years.
One of Rossall’s finest moments came at the end of a testing 1949-50 season which had included a period in which the school suffered, what the Playfair Rugby annual described as, an outbreak of infantile paralysis. Sounds nasty.
Anyway its effect was to torpedo what should have been an outstanding fifteens season but there was a silver lining and that was the opportunity to rescue the season at the Rosslyn Park Sevens where the long striding Bill Taverner led an extremely talented side.
It was coached by Jack Ellis, an exciting scrum-half who had been capped by England just before the War. After hostilities – during which he was one of those British troops who liberated Belsen – he became a Greek and Latin teacher at Rossall with responsibility for rugby.
They started strongly in the early round against Wycliffe (14-0) and Trent (23-0) before their first major test against a small but lively Llandovery side which Rossall won 10-4. Then came a 6-3 cliff hanger against Sherborne, which required two periods of extra-time to decide, with Taverner clinching the issue with a 70 yard individual try.
Taverner was the key man again in the semi-final with a brilliant individual try in their 6-0 victory over the Royal Naval School Dartmouth which set up an eagerly anticipated final against a huge Haileybury side. It was Haileybury who struck first with a converted try but that man Taverner was not to be denied and produced a stunning brace for Rossall to take their first title.
Some good years followed in the fifties with a particularly strong team in 1957 losing just one schools game, but visits to Rosslyn Park became increasingly rare and indeed they didn’t travel south at all between 1960 and 1978. Did the headmaster not approve, had there been an incident in the dim and murky past? Whatever the reason that decision deprived probably Rossall’s best ever side the chance of glory. A certain Peter Winterbottom captained the First XV to a near unbeaten season in 1977-78 and was aided and abetted in the back row by a young John Olver from the year beneath him who went on to play with distinction at hooker for Northampton, Harlequins and occasionally England.
There were also two classy England Schools centres in Simon Beard and Justin Pendlebury and a young full-back in Simon Langford who went on to become a stalwart with Orrell and Sale and knocked on the door of the England team.
It was a freakish gathering of talent well coached by John Dewhurst, who went on to help coach the England Schools team. None of which helped when he and the team pleaded to be allowed to attend the 1978 Rosslyn Park Sevens. They had swept the board on the northern Sevens circuit winning every warm up tournament at a canter and were the clear favourites to win Rosslyn Park.
“It was a hell of a disappointment especially for those of us in the upper sixth who were leaving that year,” recalls Winterbottom. “The headmaster just wouldn’t back down, it wasn’t to be.”
Perhaps the fuss the lads kicked up did have an effect a year on when the school finally relented and although they had not carried all before them on the fifteens field that season a squad including Olver and Langford walked off with the Festival title, beating Bryanston 16-12 in an entertaining final.
“Rugby was a big thing at Rossall in the 70s and 80s,” continues Winterbottom. “We played all the big northern schools and gave as good as we got – Sedbergh, Stonyhurst, Ampleforth, RGS Lancaser and others, and we had an annual game against Fettes which we always considered a big match. John was a really good coach for school players – he knew his stuff, was well organised and was really enthusiastic.
“Rossall is a pretty exposed spot and it unquestionably gets windy up there but actually after a while you just stop noticing the wind. It didn’t seem to stop us playing a decent brand of rugby.”
Surprisingly Winterbottom missed out on an England Schools cap although he made it to the final trial in Burton on Trent. “I seem to remember every back rower involved in the trial – six starters and a couple of the replacements – got capped that year except for me! I was able to make amends the next year when I got an England Colts cap while I was doing my year working on a farm.”
The school remained pretty strong and competitive in the 80s and early 90s before rugby dropped off massively with a change of emphasis towards overseas students and the introduction of girls. Hockey became more the sport of preference along with football and a very strong golf squad which takes full advantage of the many local links courses.
Rossall returned to Rosslyn Park again in 1984, and off the back of three straight titles on the competitive Northern circuit were favourites to win the Festival title but this time lost out to old rivals Ampleforth, 10-4 in the final.
Mike Winterbottom, Peter’s younger brother, was another fine player who was later to captain Otley and indeed play for the Bay of Plenty against England on the 1985 tour after travelling down to New Zealand for a year.
Rugby was still blooming in 1989 when, after reaching the semi-final in the inaugural year of the competition, the school won the Daily Mail U15 Cup in 1989, defeating RGS High Wycombe in the final 11-10.
In the early 90s there was another brief period of success when Liam Botham spearheaded a useful side. The young Botham won England U15 cricket honours from the school
and his rugby team lost to eventual winners Skinners in the semi-final of the Daily Mail, while further up the school he played for the North at U18 level while the school enjoyed some useful runs in the emerging Daily Mail U18 competition.